Twenty minutes later she stepped into the kitchen, where Ursula was preparing dinner.
“Ursula,” she said to the back of her sister. “I’m sorry. I know you are worried about me, but can’t you also be happy for me?”
Ursula turned around, her eyes full of misery. “I am. You know I will always support you, and I am proud of you, but you need to be careful. Please, be careful.”
“Who needs to be careful?” Mutter had entered the kitchen and placed two bags with groceries on the table.
“We were talking about my work at the hospital,” Anna answered, evading Mutter’s glance.
“Why don’t I believe you, Anna Klausen?” Mutter said while Ursula busied herself putting the meager results of hours of standing in queues into the pantry.
“Is this all you’ve got for the entire week?” Ursula asked.
Mutter cast her a glance that meant “I-know-what-you’re-doing” and gave a deep sigh. “Unfortunately, yes. Thank God for the allotments and Lydia’s packages from the farm.” Since both sisters worked irregular shifts and long hours, their mother had taken the brunt of the tedious standing in queues to organize food.
Having raised four children, she’d never held a formal job, but lately she had started to exchange sewing work for food, coal, or basically anything that could be traded.
Chapter 14
Anna arrived at the Charité Monday morning and was setting out to prepare new bacterial cultures when Professor Scherer appeared in the laboratory, clad in a white lab coat.
“Fräulein Klausen, would you please accompany me to the Pediatric Clinic?” he asked.
“Of course, Professor, let me finish setting up this round of tuberculosis experiments,” Anna answered, holding a pipette in her right hand as she dumped droplets onto the nutrient solution in a round bowl. She’d finally found a way to control the growth of the bacterium. Once finished, she blew a strand of hair from her forehead and glanced at the professor, who’d been observing her.
“I believe I’m this close,” she said, putting her fingers half an inch apart and smiling, “to finalizing a vaccine that will not only slow down the growth of the mycobacterium tuberculosis, but contain it entirely.”
“We’ll soon find out,” the professor answered and watched her as she disinfected and dried her hands. “Let’s go.”
On the way out, she tossed her lab coat into a basket for washing and grabbed a clean one. One could never be careful enough. God forbid, if the highly infectious bacteria spread into the wild…
Since the tour on her first day of work she hadn’t returned to the patient wards of the Charité. The head doctor was already waiting for them and Professor Scherer made the introductions.
“Doctor Bessau, this is Anna Klausen, the young woman I was telling you about. She has made marvelous progress finding a possible tuberculosis vaccine.”
“Then let’s have a look at your work.” The doctor smiled and handed them each gloves and a surgical mask.
Anna looked slightly confused at the two men, but put on the gear and followed them through the gated gangway to the quarantine barracks. The excitement of something important loomed in the air, but with every step she took towards the quarantine barracks, her steps become more labored as if she was treading through quicksand. The two men walked ahead of her, talking about a medical diagnosis she did not quite understand.
On the other side, they stepped into a huge room and the sight that greeted her knocked Anna’s breath from her lungs. Memories she’d buried deep down snaked back up her spine to attack her out of the blue, and she staggered.
Roughly thirty cots were in the shabby room, each one occupied by an emaciated child. Regardless of their age, all of them were strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and not much else. Some had obvious deformities, others showed the empty glance of imbeciles, but most of the children simply lay whimpering, howling, and coughing.
Anna put a hand over her mouth, oxygen not reaching her brain anymore. The air became thick, too heavy to breathe, and she fought the urge to rip the mask away in her struggle for oxygen.
“What is this?” she asked, the horror etched into her face.
“Imbeciles. Cripples. Worthless members of society. It’s disgusting, since most of them can’t even control their bowels,” the doctor answered.
“I can see that, but what are they doing here?” Anna asked, unable to look away as a child around six years of age started violently coughing, until blood smeared his face and bed sheet. At the other end of the room, a nurse gave another child an injection, but she didn’t even look up to see which one of her little patients was coughing so hard.
Anna grabbed a paper towel and walked over to clean the blood and mucus from the little boy’s face. He kept coughing and howling, his eyes empty. The sound chilled Anna to her bones.
“A waste of effort; he’ll probably die within a day,” the doctor said. “He got the first lot of the vaccine you’re working on.”
Anna felt the ground swaying beneath her and opened her mouth. No words came out. It took her several tries before she found her voice. “The...the vaccine isn’t completed,” she stammered.
The doctor nodded. “And the only way we will ever know for sure whether it works or not is to test it on a person. Laboratory tests can only tell us so much.”
“But, but…you’re infecting these children with tuberculosis!” Anna said.
“Not children. Degenerates. They have previously been selected for removal from society,” the doctor told her matter-of-factly.
Anna shook her head. It was so wrong. Just because a child was soft in the head or had a game leg didn’t mean they should have their life arbitrarily ripped from them.
“Fräulein Klausen, I know this may look cruel at first sight,” the professor said, entering the conversation, “but you have to remember that these subjects aren’t normal children. They are sub-humans, more similar to a guinea pig or a rabbit than to our race.”
Why wouldn’t the ground stop moving? Anna grabbed onto the bars of one of the cots and fought the dizziness attacking her. She thought she’d seen the abyss of human cruelty in Ravensbrück, but this? “But they are suffering…” she managed to murmur.
The doctor looked at her, his dark eyes full of compassion. “I agree with you. This is unfortunate. Very unfortunate. A person with a pure heart like you cannot stand to see even the lowest animal suffering. But we have to be rational here; sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. And wouldn’t you rather have one of these subjects suffer for a short time, if it can help to save hundreds of thousands? Our soldiers, mothers, beloved children?”
Anna couldn’t form an answer. For the remainder of the morning, she trudged silently behind the two men, her brain trying to come to terms with what she’d witnessed.
At the end of the ward round, Doctor Bessau led them back through the gangway to the open part of the Pediatric Clinic. There she glimpsed mothers sitting at the beds of their children, trying to hide the worry etched into their faces.
“Fräulein Klausen, so far you have done outstanding work.” Professor Scherer congratulated her on their way back to the laboratories. “I would think a promotion is appropriate as soon as we see positive results from the vaccine.”
“A promotion?” she asked.
“Yes, as head of the vaccine team. I also thought of having you enroll into university on a part-time basis. I have great plans for your future.” He smiled at her and added, “Please excuse me; I have a lunch engagement.”
Then he was gone, leaving Anna standing at the entrance to the building that hosted the laboratories, dumbfounded. Her entire life she’d been dreaming about this. Enrolling in university. Becoming a biologist. Helping people with her work.
But right now it tasted stale. More than that, it tasted wrong.
She skipped lunch and instead buried herself in work. Work that caused suffering to innocent children. The bowl with the nutritional so
lution slipped from her hand and shattered into a million pieces.
Anna closed her eyes for a moment and then grabbed a broom and shovel to clean up the mess. When she’d swept up the shards and mopped the floor, she tucked an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. Leaning on the broom she sighed. Sometimes a few have to suffer for the benefit of many.
In this war, everyone had to make sacrifices. Tuberculosis was one of the scourges of mankind, and she might be holding the key in her hands to rid humanity of an insidious disease. Could she really throw away the chance to help millions because a few dimwits had to suffer?
Chapter 15
The gnawing guilt nagged Anna for the rest of the day. Every time she thought she had it beaten back, it returned with a vengeance. When Anna arrived home, Ursula and Mutter were preparing dinner.
“Hello, darling,” Mutter said, peeling potatoes. “You look tired.”
“Yes, it was a tough day,” Anna answered and poured herself a glass of water. She needed to talk to someone about the events of the day. Normally the first person to set her moral compass straight would be her mother, but she couldn’t tell her. Not today anyway. Mutter still believed Anna was working as a simple nurse at the Charité. No, today she didn’t have the strength to confess that she was working as a research assistant, trying to find a tuberculosis vaccine.
“Everyone is tired these days,” Mutter said, attacking the next potato. “Who can sleep well with all the air raids and spending the nights in those dreadful bunkers? I wish the bloody Englishman would drop a bomb on me and it was over!”
Surprised by Mutter’s sudden outburst Anna all but dropped the glass in her hand. Before the war, even before Lotte disappeared, her mother had been the slumbering bedrock of their family. Pleading for help, Anna glanced at her sister, but Ursula simply sat on her chair, her eyes treacherously damp.
Anna didn’t understand the world anymore. Mutter yelled. Ursula cried. She wouldn’t be able to talk to either one of them about her doubts. She studied Ursula’s face. Something was different. Thinner, but also more rounded. That didn’t make sense. Anna shrugged, over the last weeks, every conversation with her sister had ended in arguments and yelling.
“Can I help?” Anna asked, and then put a pot with water on the stove to boil the potatoes.
After dinner, Anna glanced at the clock. “Peter will pick me up in a few minutes.”
“Now? It’ll be dark soon,” Mutter objected.
“Don’t worry. I used to walk at night all the time when I was working shifts in Moabit. Ursula still does,” Anna answered. Ursula often worked irregular shifts in her job as prison guard. It was the perfect cover for her activities in the underground network of Pfarrer Bernau and allowed her to leave the house at any time during day or night without raising suspicions.
“It’s different now,” Mutter said. “There’s more crime with all those people not having enough food.”
“Peter will walk me home,” Anna assured her mother.
“How can I know he is a good man? You have not even presented him to me,” Mutter said.
“You will get to know him. Soon. Just not today.” It was a sore spot. Anna wished she could introduce him to her family, but she knew they wouldn’t be fooled by his handsome looks. Mutter would discover on the spot that he was hiding something, and as long as Anna didn’t know his secret, she didn’t dare bring him home.
“That must be him,” Ursula said as the doorbell rang.
Anna dashed down the stairs with a huge smile on her lips. When she opened the door, she threw herself into his arms.
“Wowza!” Peter echoed a word from some American film of so long ago. “What have I done to deserve this?” He chuckled and pressed a kiss on her cheek.
After walking hand in hand along the streets, they soon got tired of watching dust, rubble, and destruction.
“Want to come to my place to hear a radio show?” Peter asked. He lived in an apartment in one of the staff buildings at the Charité.
“That would be nice,” Anna answered as they hopped onto a bus. While technically he had access to the professor’s Mercedes at all times, he preferred not to use it during his off hours.
When they arrived at Peter’s bachelor apartment, which consisted of a single bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen that doubled as the sitting room, Anna’s palms were moist.
Peter invited her to settle on the couch, and then turned on the radio before he made them hot tea and handed one mug to Anna.
“Would you mind waiting for a few minutes?” he asked with an apologetic expression. “I have to do some work.”
“Surely. I won’t run away.” Or maybe I will. She had decided to talk to him about the things she saw this morning in the quarantine ward. But now she wasn’t so sure revealing her true feelings was a great idea. She hadn’t known him for a long time and he could be a spy, trying to find out what had really happened to her supposedly dead sister Lotte.
“It won’t take long, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss on her cheeks, and inhaling his masculine scent made her throw all precaution overboard.
“Wait. I have to tell you something.”
Peter’s eyes darted between her and the closed bedroom door, where he kept his small desk.
“Please,” Anna whispered. “It’s important.”
He pulled his chair to her side, and wrapped his strong arm around her shoulders. Anna took several deep breaths before she found the courage to expose the horrors of her guilt-ravaged mind. She took one look at Peter, and sucked in a ragged breath. Could she tell him what she’d seen?
“Professor Scherer took me to the Pediatric Clinic today. To the quarantine ward.”
“He did?” Peter asked with a clenched jaw.
“I…it was awful. That vaccine I’m working on? I didn’t know they were using the test sera to experiment on retarded children.” She shuddered, the scenes of the morning flashing through her brain. “It was horrible.”
Peter didn’t say a word, just squeezed her shoulder. But his eyes betrayed no surprise.
“You knew?” she gasped.
“Since I’m not medical staff I’ve never been there, but yes, I always suspected something awful was going on back there,” he answered, nudging her head to look at him. His radiant blue eyes had darkened. “You feel sorry for the children?”
“I do. This is wrong on so many levels. I wish they would stop!” Anna cried, holding his gaze.
“Talk to the professor. He listens to you more than anyone else I’ve ever known,” Peter told her.
“Me? I’m only a research assistant.”
“That’s where you are wrong. Professor Scherer is convinced that you’re brilliant. He’s betting on you winning the Nobel Prize one day.”
Anna shook her head. “It’s not even him conducting the experiments, but Doctor Bessau, the head of the Pediatric Clinic. Even if I convinced the professor to let me stop preparing the bacterial cultures, it would make no difference. Someone else would do them. It’s not that difficult, you know?”
“But it would make a difference for you,” Peter insisted.
“It’s not my fault! I’m just working in the laboratory, doing what I’m told to do. It’s not me who’s infecting children with a deadly disease! I didn’t even know someone was testing the vaccines on humans!” Anna growled.
“But now you know. Will that change anything?” Peter folded his big hands across hers, as if to make sure she wouldn’t balk.
“Holy hell! You’re making it sound as if I’m the bad person here! I never wanted to experience any of this madness, I only worked in Ravensbrück to save…” Anna slapped a hand over her mouth, petrified at continuing the sentence. Even if her initial revelation hadn’t caused Peter to turn away from her, she couldn’t trust him enough to say more. To say it all. “…My work is going to make a difference one day. I can save thousands. Hundreds of thousands even. This vaccine might be able to eradicate one of the scourges of mankind. Don’
t you think that’s worth something?”
“Anna, my sweet little Anna. I’m sure you have the best intentions, and the work you are doing will make a difference one day. But surely there must be another way to get the same result.” Peter stroked her hair as he crooned the soothing words.
“I don’t know what I can do…” She took a breath and then shook her head. Her mind reeled with the implications. Everywhere she turned, she found no rational answer. “Flat-out refusing to work on the bacterial cultures will ruin my career. Professor Scherer promised to promote me as soon as we see a success.”
Peter took her face into both hands and locked eyes with her. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”
Chapter 16
Anna had been putting in more and more hours at the Charité in a frantic quest to make that vaccine work as soon as possible. It was the only way she could think of to appease her conscience. Day in, day out she told herself that it wasn’t her infecting the children, that she was merely growing the bacteria cultures, following orders. There was nothing she could do.
Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. The words kept reverberating through her brain. Both Professor Scherer and Peter had used the same words, but their meaning lay worlds apart.
Anna shrugged and looked out the window. At this time of the year, March, spring should be on its way to light up the city. But instead of blossoming trees, flowers, and green grass, all she saw was ruins, rubble, and dead trees reaching their bare branches into the sky like the gnarled fingers of cursed creatures.
As if the daily fight to find food on the empty shelves wasn’t enough, the Allies had further increased the frequency of their air raids over Berlin. It wasn’t only the Englishmen anymore that hung low in the skies dropping their deadly cargo, but also the Americans.
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